So, finally I played the whole thing. Even if the many hints you gave spoiled a bit the surprise, experience the post-prologue was really enjoyable.
It's a process often found in stories, set up in a "small world", and suddendly reveal a meta-world, bigger, giving to the reader an incredible feeling of ... of "magnification" ? Greatness ?
I don't find the word, but well, it's like living in a new dimension.
Slight spoil for Umineko/Utawarerumono/ever17 :

In VN it's the the same trick with Umineko, Utawarerumono, a bit ever17 (the last coco path), in movie see the True Man Show, or even Matrix even if the "discover" come quickly and the "live in small world" really short.

So, it was really enjoyable and pretty well written. Thanks for your work.

The only complain I have is about music. Well, the soundtrack itslef is good, that's not the point.
But knowing it was mostly tracks bought gave me a bitter feel (I'm not really speaking of using paid assets for a Nano game of course, that's a different point). I know it's not easy to find composer that will give exactly what you want, but, well.
Is it exclusive soundtrack ? (like, nobody can buy the same and use it ?)

@9:19: Ahhhh thank you so much! I love the mood and style of that whole thing so much. ;_; I've been fangirling your WIP from afar, so I'm thrilled to see our characters in your style. I don't think it's too spoilery or anything, just a fun random moment. XD

I'm so glad that you enjoyed the game. The pacing is something that a number of people have brought up and it's something that I'll pay closer attention to in the future. I didn't have a whole lot of time to plan this story out and I guess I fell into the trap of "Well, *I* know what's going on, so the player must, too!" when there's no way the player knows all the details that I do, haha. I did foreshadow a liiiiittle bit

(a few have said that the prologue was so unrealistic that it had to be fake)

but definitely not enough. At the same time, I guess part of the impact was from the post-prologue being a bolt from the blue, so... I guess it's a tough call, either way. ;; Thank you so much for your feedback and thanks for playing!

@Ziassan: Haha it's funny that you said our hints spoiled the surprise because most everyone else was incredibly surprised--and we even had people who were very angry/annoyed and felt as if we'd tricked them. ^^; But I'm glad that you enjoyed it nonetheless. That's pretty much the effect I was going for with the writing, so I'm happy to hear that it worked well and wasn't too outrageous.

Music is something that is, well, very difficult to afford--especially on an indie budget. I've worked with a professional game music composer before and he charged about 30 euro per minute of music time and that was already discounted (because the game I was working on at the time was free). It's just not really within our budget. D: I'm also extremely picky about music. ^^; I spend a very long time finding ones that fit the mood and genre of the game scenes and even when using royalty-free assets, it's tough work. The idea of finding someone who can compose music I'd like and work diligently as a teammate rather than a hired hand seems like an impossible dream... Most people are just not very reliable, even when paid. So we really have no choice but to use royalty-free tracks. Most of our tracks are bought, at least. It's not exclusive so there's a chance that others may buy the same tracks and use them, but since the various tracks are spread out on different albums and from different makers, it's just highly unlikely that someone would be able to buy and assemble the exact same soundtrack.

Yeah this concern isn't rare to hear, and understandable ; but even so I think I'll grumble forever on this kind of thing ahah.
A soundtrack is important and that's why you work like that. But to me if a soundtrack is important, it needs to be unique, tied to the story and faithful. Music brings emotion and memory of the moment you heard it (like some songs of your childhood remember you these distant part of your life) ; so now if I play another game using a similar track it will recall me some feeling from this story. It will be mixed and... well like suddendly having to eat fish with hot chocolate drink~
Hmm, again ranting.
But I don't think dealing with a composer is really different than dealing with an artist after all. Even if... if ever you used bought sprites, not exclusives, people would get as crazy as I was for the music just above, hmm.

@Ziassan: I surely understand your concerns. Music is important to me, too, and in a perfect world, I'd love to have an original soundtrack for each game. It's just that we have a veeeery tight budget, so we have to prioritize some things until we have more money available. I was lucky enough to find and work with Auro... She and I operate on pretty much the same wavelength and after working with her, it'd be very hard to settle for less. XD I don't even consider it as "dealing with" her because she's so easy to work with.

So yeah I understand where you're coming from and I agree... I've been debating back and forth about whether to hire a composer for BCM because there are lots of moments/times where I feel like none of the tracks I have work very well for what I want. :/ Ahhhh music is so tricky. If you know any reliable composers you'd like to recommend, I'd appreciate it.

Just gave this one a run. The atmosphere of this game is amazing! Ristorante Amore might have my favorite GUI out of all the VNs I've played, even though almost all of the VNs I've played up to now are the longer commercial games. Love all the attention to detail given to the various frames, textures and transitions... as a bit of an artist/ game-maker myself, I could learn a lot from a game like this.

About the story, I'm actually glad I read a few of the comments in this topic before playing; after seeing the intro trailer I thought I would be picking this up for purely educational purposes. (Just because I'm a guy, I guess. Granted, I don't know what girls think of my creations in general but I figure I'm way on the other side of the spectrum)

Even after getting the gist of the sci-fi spin, going to the Profiles page and seeing everyone in casual wear was a real "whoa!" moment. I've only read Josh/Angelina route so far, but the overall premise is strange yet interesting. Hearing how the parallel world works gives me flashbacks to Disgaea; total nonsense when you think about it, but it's explained so naturally that it becomes pretty endearing. I'll probably find the time to get most of the other endings, if not all.

Great work guys! It's unbelievable that this came together in a month.

Whoa, I was reading the comments before I played and everyone was like "Trolled lol" and I was wondering why...

And then the post-prologue happened |D I seriously laughed my ass off while my roommates were busy studying. Whoops.

too bad I can't get Liam's Romantic End without that error going off -w-; I wanted that CG dammit.

The pacing kind of threw me off a bit. I figured that

the prologue was a bit cheesy for my taste, but afterward the post-prologue sometimes made me a bit bored while reading, especially when I realized Pierre was the main and it wasn't otome anymore. I guess I was just a bit disappointed that my player character was a guy? I guess this is unfair, and you meant do this MC switch, but I guess it's just an opinion. I do like the idea of the Lily's not being real and that their planet runs on love and stuff. Haha. And also for a while, at least in Liam's route, there wasn't much tension until midway. Which I was happy to see. Then again, I'm half asleep while reading this for outside reasons so...

Actually, while I accidentally stumble on post-prologue Ethan route...are you making references to Re: Alistair and Travis's 'Hmm, I wonder' verbal tic? They do look alike |D

I feel kind of sad that some otome game heroines are so weak and lifeless that it comes to this in the end haha

I just got all all the endings. I really enjoyed the game! I was completely thrown off by the post-prologue like everyone else, but both stories were really charming in their own ways. And I can't stop being impressed that it was completed in one month! Congratulations!

This game was just so thoroughly enjoyable in every aspect. After playing it for about two hours I went off and fangirl raged because Ethan is really too cute in both the prologue and the post-prologue. I haven't fangirl raged so hard in like a year. Your game is really amazing. 8V The relationships and friendships that

Josh maintains with his coworkers is such a fresh way of delving into the typical love and friendships of typical VNs. It really feels much fresher getting to date the characters after they and the protag have already known each other for a while. I really also liked the feeling of the homosexual relationships being totally natural, like how Josh and Ethan got together because they've friends for years and had that mutual chemistry. I'm just really distasteful of BL games that are BL for the sake of being BL; it makes the game's universe seem limited to only guys and gay ones at that. Your game not only evaded that but went beyond and I really enjoyed it?! [/shoves hearts at you ;_; <3?!]

Anyways, so fun to read through. ;v;

I made you guys a quick fanart of Ethan because I JUST, ...warning mild spoilers!
Sorry that it's so sloppy, I wanted to draw Ethan just for the sake of drawing Ethan saldkaljda

My next free weekend will be reserved to play this^^
I've only booted the game and lost some time admiring the menu and initial seconds of the game, I'll give it proper feedback when I have extensive play!

SusanTheCat wrote:Every path I have taken has references to Math and how easy/hard it is. (o.O)

I hadn't noticed, but after you brought it up I realized that you're right! XD I didn't even really mean to do that, but yay for women and math. I know it would have been even more cliche if Lily had a more ~domestic~ dream, but I couldn't resist. :C

Graph wrote:Ristorante Amore might have my favorite GUI out of all the VNs I've played, even though almost all of the VNs I've played up to now are the longer commercial games. Love all the attention to detail given to the various frames, textures and transitions... as a bit of an artist/ game-maker myself, I could learn a lot from a game like this.

Oh wow, thank you so much! That's very flattering. We are a team of perfectionists, so we zero in on details like that. XD

Graph wrote:About the story, I'm actually glad I read a few of the comments in this topic before playing; after seeing the intro trailer I thought I would be picking this up for purely educational purposes. (Just because I'm a guy, I guess. Granted, I don't know what girls think of my creations in general but I figure I'm way on the other side of the spectrum)

Even after getting the gist of the sci-fi spin, going to the Profiles page and seeing everyone in casual wear was a real "whoa!" moment. I've only read Josh/Angelina route so far, but the overall premise is strange yet interesting. Hearing how the parallel world works gives me flashbacks to Disgaea; total nonsense when you think about it, but it's explained so naturally that it becomes pretty endearing. I'll probably find the time to get most of the other endings, if not all.

Great work guys! It's unbelievable that this came together in a month.

Honestly, I think guys might find this game a bit more palatable just because the plot twist wouldn't bother them nearly as much... Naturally, we try to make our games appealing to both genders, so I always ask my brother and other guy friends for their opinions. Still, I'm very glad that you enjoyed it even though you probably weren't expecting to at first. XD

I do admit that the story and parallel world are very silly, but again that's because I didn't want the backstory to set up a huge overarching plot. There were lots of things I would have done if the game were supposed to be longer. But it's very flattering to be compared to Disgaea! We were kind of going for a Monsters Inc. kind of world, so that's pretty close.

Thank you so much for playing and giving your opinions. I hope you enjoy the rest of the game.

Veniae wrote:Oh my, how didn't I know that was a thing? It seems awesome, downloading~

Also congrats on the release! (Man, almost 60k words in a month. That is... very impressive.)

Thanks! XD I guess I can't make any excuses about "not being able to write" anymore since I know that 60k/1 month is my upper limit so far.

lepapillonrouge wrote:Whoa, I was reading the comments before I played and everyone was like "Trolled lol" and I was wondering why...

And then the post-prologue happened |D I seriously laughed my ass off while my roommates were busy studying. Whoops.

too bad I can't get Liam's Romantic End without that error going off -w-; I wanted that CG dammit.

The pacing kind of threw me off a bit. I figured that

the prologue was a bit cheesy for my taste, but afterward the post-prologue sometimes made me a bit bored while reading, especially when I realized Pierre was the main and it wasn't otome anymore. I guess I was just a bit disappointed that my player character was a guy? I guess this is unfair, and you meant do this MC switch, but I guess it's just an opinion. I do like the idea of the Lily's not being real and that their planet runs on love and stuff. Haha. And also for a while, at least in Liam's route, there wasn't much tension until midway. Which I was happy to see. Then again, I'm half asleep while reading this for outside reasons so...

Actually, while I accidentally stumble on post-prologue Ethan route...are you making references to Re: Alistair and Travis's 'Hmm, I wonder' verbal tic? They do look alike |D

I feel kind of sad that some otome game heroines are so weak and lifeless that it comes to this in the end haha

If you press "ignore" when the error comes up, you can skip through it. I'll be fixing it in the v1.1 patch, but it's not a game-breaking error.

The prologue was meant to be cheesy. XD So that's okay. We've found that otome fans are pretty disappointed about the switch, but hey, that's why we never said this was an otome game. The rest of the game is supposed to be more of a slice of life thing, which is why it's a bit more slow-paced. Liam's route is especially less tense because he and Josh have been friends for years and years. 0_o How much drama can you have with a friend you've known since you were a little kid?

And no, that wasn't meant to be a Re: Alistair reference. Plenty of people other than Travis say "Hmm, I wonder."

Anyway thanks for playing and I'm glad you at least got a laugh out of it. XD We will be doing an actual (no trolling) otome game before too long, so I guess you can look forward to that? XD

lazykitsune wrote:I just got all all the endings. I really enjoyed the game! I was completely thrown off by the post-prologue like everyone else, but both stories were really charming in their own ways. And I can't stop being impressed that it was completed in one month! Congratulations!

Thank you so much! Congratulations on full-comping the game and I'm so very glad that you enjoyed RisAmo. <3

Nay wrote:This game was just so thoroughly enjoyable in every aspect. After playing it for about two hours I went off and fangirl raged because Ethan is really too cute in both the prologue and the post-prologue. I haven't fangirl raged so hard in like a year. Your game is really amazing. 8V The relationships and friendships that

Josh maintains with his coworkers is such a fresh way of delving into the typical love and friendships of typical VNs. It really feels much fresher getting to date the characters after they and the protag have already known each other for a while. I really also liked the feeling of the homosexual relationships being totally natural, like how Josh and Ethan got together because they've friends for years and had that mutual chemistry. I'm just really distasteful of BL games that are BL for the sake of being BL; it makes the game's universe seem limited to only guys and gay ones at that. Your game not only evaded that but went beyond and I really enjoyed it?! [/shoves hearts at you ;_; <3?!]

Anyways, so fun to read through. ;v;

I made you guys a quick fanart of Ethan because I JUST, ...warning mild spoilers!
Sorry that it's so sloppy, I wanted to draw Ethan just for the sake of drawing Ethan saldkaljda

Great job! I'll be looking forward to your other releases ;v;

This makes me so happy because I feel like a lot of people found post-prologue Ethan to be somewhat lukewarm instead of seeing him for the cute little moeblob he is. ;_; I'm so glad that you enjoyed it and that you feel that way about the friendships and relationships. That's really what I was going for with the story... Originally, we weren't even planning on having romance in the post-prologue at all, but I'm glad that you liked them. It makes it feel like it was worth it. *_*

I agree 100% about BL games that are BL just for the sake of it. Characters should have real reasons for falling in love... That's what I think. And having a whole cast with the same sexuality just seems a little implausible to me. That's why I tried to make Josh fit well with all four of the characters, male or female. Plus, he's been friends with all of them for a long while, so it's not so much of the "I've known you for a month and now we're having a Best Ending and getting married!" kind of scenario... Or so I hope. XD

Awwwww oh my gosh, he's so cute! *_* /pokes his little cheeks~~ I really like your style! Thanks so much! If you haven't yet, you should sign up for the Cyanide Tea newsletter~ We periodically send out updates on our other projects and releases. :33

Takanashi wrote:My next free weekend will be reserved to play this^^
I've only booted the game and lost some time admiring the menu and initial seconds of the game, I'll give it proper feedback when I have extensive play!

Aww, thank you! XD I'll be looking forward to your feedback and I hope you enjoy the game once you get the chance to play. :3

Yo, thanks for making this game! Everything is an eye candy! Now onto my review...

Although I was dissapointed at first because of the MC switch, I kinda LOL so hard at the post-prologue. It seems like everyone is like "Hurrrah! No Lily anymore!" XDD Ahem.

I kind of wanting to avoid BL-kissing scenes so I took the friendship routes and the romance routes for girls. Forgive me. And you're good at writing believable characters. I like the characters more post-prologue because they aren't in complete, standard otome game people with no problems and depths and whatsoever. So I bow to you ma'am My favorite character is Laura, and it's because she's awesome. Ethan post-prologue is also nice!

The art? Dude, should I even comment at that? Auro told me it took her 6 hours props for one CG and 8 hours per sprites, which is just O_O Respect!